My Bargain Sense Is Tingling

I’m not sure about the details, but a record store chain that was established here in Norway, Free Record Shop to be exact, disappeared last year and some of its locations were overtaken by GameStop. I’d heard that they’d gone bankrupt, but according to Wikipedia it seems more like they downsized.

The GameStop shops overtook whatever goods Free Record Shop had as well, and they’ve recently been selling off the remaining stock of CDs at 5 NOK each – think of it as 0.5 USD (aka. 50 cents) – at one of their Oslo stores. That’s pretty much the lowest price I’ve ever seen for brand new CDs sold from a retail store. Unfortunately the CDs were all pretty disorganized, as they generally are in these kind of sales, so you just have to be patient and browse your way through stacks and boxes if you want to find something you deem worthy of bringing home with you.

I visited the store two separate days, and it was pretty full both days, people browsing and some ending up buying entire boxes worth of CDs, and in effect hampering your own browsing (by being in the way and buying CDs you might have wanted to buy). It also seemed like they had some stock they hadn’t yet put out and would be putting out more later, so I’m tempted to go back and browse some more. But I probably won’t. I sort of want to see if they maybe had the Disney The Lion King audio book CD – I’m a big fan of the film, and they had plenty of almost all the other storybook CDs except this one, so my instincts are telling me I didn’t see any because they hadn’t been put any out yet.

Anyway, I managed to end up with a few interesting CDs, and here is the bulk of them. The one I would have been the most surprised to find was an album by artist M. Ward, with its cover still in mint condition, but it turned out the CD was missing when I went to the register to pay.

What follows is a summary of the CDs, starting at the top and working my way from the left in each row.

Barnas Favoritter 1. There is some decent children’s music to be found out there. Is any of it on this CD? Well, it has a few songs I recall from my younger years, like the awfully annoying “Digger Deg” from Sesam Stasjon, as well as several I can’t recall at all. But! It also has the extended version of the introduction song to I Mummidalen, a track I lost several years ago. I’m more than happy paying 5 kroner to get that; it’s one of the best opening songs to a cartoon ever, right up there with the opening songs for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not the new show), Teen Titans and Duck Tales.

The Ark – Prayer For The Weekend. A Swedish bisexual glam-rock-pop band. They have some decent, catchy songs, but overall I’m not a big fan of theirs. I saw them live once, which is one of my worst concert experiences to this day. I remember I felt like I was in a mosh pit, standing quite close to the stage, with some enthusiastic female jumping up and down next to me with her goddamn purse still over her shoulder. I got out of it with only minor flesh wounds.

Mono Puff – Unsupervised. The first find at this sale that made me go oooh. The band is/was a side project by John Flansburgh, who makes up one of the two Johns of the They Might Be Giants duo.

En Helt Ny Värld. Swedish orchestra performs various classic tunes from various Disney films. Probably my most exciting find. Given the silhouette of the two lions I would have expected The Lion King to be featured heavily, but only one song from it can be found here – which is “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” and arguably it’s the dullest song from the film. Ah well.

Jakten På Juleskurken. No idea what it is, but I felt inspired to grab a copy.

Monomen. A self-titled EP. I believe this Norwegian band warmed up for one of the Stereo Total concerts I attended, and they were decent enough. What was fun was how high up they turned the bass on one or two of the tunes, so you could feel the music vibrating through your bones with the higher notes. This CD probably won’t have that effect though.

Magnet – Dreamfall – The Longest Journey, Soundtrack EP. I haven’t played the game nor am I overly fond of this Norwegian artist. It also seems like a bit of a lazy EP, as three of the four tracks can be found on his other already released albums, so if you have those you’d in effect be paying for just one song. But, it has a pretty cover, it’s still sealed, it might be a collectible, and video game specific CDs are neat regardless, so I figured I’d grab it.

Scooter – Who’s Got The Last Laugh Now? I listened to and enjoyed this band through my pre-teen and early teen years, before I started getting into more “proper” music. So it’s been a few years since I bought a CD by this band, but now and then I’ve been wanting to pick up their newer albums, if only to be a completeist. Their music can still be fun in small doses.

Martins Spennende Reise. Apparently from a TV show that must’ve aired around 1996 (as that’s when the CD was recorded). That would have made me around 11 years old, meaning that I should have been exposed to it if I was within the show’s demographics, but I can’t really remember it.

Scooter – Mind The Gap. Another CD by my old favourite band which I didn’t have. Looking at their discography, it looks like I’m now only missing three of their albums. They have a nasty tendency to release special and limited editions of their CDs though, with extra tracks. Unfortunately both this and the other CD is just the regular versions.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Still sealed. Meaning, I might be able to trade it for something else at another record store. The music for this film was decent enough though, with a couple of catchy songs, so I might keep it.

The Emperor’s New Groove. One of my favourite modern Disney films, and maybe the funniest animated film I’ve ever seen. Its music wasn’t exactly memorable though, but still neat to have the soundtracks to films you’ve seen and enjoyed, and now and then they contain some surprisingly decent tune(s).